Yanky, thanks for starting the thread, I think it will be great way for us to stay in touch through this upcoming 1st year.

I have been reading as many of the "how-to" book as I can. I take them witha grain of salt and note some things that might be useful, but who knows until I get there.

I have a good friend, my ex-partner, who is a 3rd year at GMU. I have been in his ear alot. but it seems like all schools have little quirks that make them unique.

Like I posted on the other board..for fun I have been trying to watch as many law/lawyer type movies as I can.

Pluto- here is some Dell laptop advice-with your Dell they did not send you the Operating System Disk, they want you to make a copy through the dell utilty. email customer service and they will send you one free, well you already paid for it, thats why I say you should make them give it to you. anyway Thats what I did.I was a bit upset that they did not send me a copy of the XP disc that I paid for.

Yes, I am such a LOSER... I did almost 2 full years of law school(6 years ago) and here I go again.... starting all over... I haven't even started prepping yet... I ordered LEEWS and am hoping my ebay seller is shipping it.... as I would like to get that done(w/ 4 kids no easy task) before school starts... I didn't do it last time and PLS2 really rec it... so we shall see....

Robo Thanks for the info... I will call and ask for the cd/disc ....If I paid for it, I should own it!

Anyways, I'm also on a summer prepping program. I've been applying Delaney's briefing technique to basic cases we will be encountering our first year. It's been very helpful. I want to get comfortable with briefing before school starts.

Books I've read: (Is it safe to say that I'm overly paranoid?)

1. Law School Confidential2. Planet Law School II3. Example & Explanations (Torts, K, Property, Civ Pro)4. Learning Legal Reasoning by John Delaney5. How to Do Your Best on Law School Exams by John Delaney6. Introduction to Legal Reasoning by Edward Levi7. Law 101 by Jay Feinman8. JDJungle Guide to Law School9. Turbulent Life of a 1L10. Getting to Maybe11. Acing Your First Year of Law School by Shana Connel Noyes12. Slouching Towards Gomarrah by Robert Bork13. Law Preview (a one week prep course) -www.lawpreview.com14. LEEWS (Legal Essay Exam Writing System) www.leews.com15. New American Bible (for motivation)

The Delaney books are very easy reads (~100 pages each) and do a wonderful job of walking you through legal analysis which is the crux of law school. You can have the BLL down cold, but if you can't apply it, you can pretty much forget about grading onto Law Preview. "Getting to Maybe" go more into depth about issue-spotting, but I recommend reading that later in the semester. As for now,a bird's eye view of the BLL is more than sufficient.

I have been attempted to buy a hornbook or two to learn about the underlying principles and polices behind each BLL, but I thought that was being way too OCD. I think I will wait until classes and let my profs enlighten me on the underlying policies and principles. Also, I've noticed that reading cases themselves is crucial to extracting principles/policies and determining whether a rule applies or not.

Contrary to some of the advice of seasoned Ls', I don't see how it behooves us to get a headstart on trying to understand/memorize the BLL. Like I said before, law school teaches you to "think, read, and read like a lawyer." They don't teach you the BLL. It's up to you , through outside independent study, to figure that on your own. So, I've been going through all the E&E's to try to familiarize myself with all the legal jargon and rules. By no means do I have a firm grasp of every rule and exception, but I understand enough to know how to approach most cases and hypos. But, I want to emphasize that although I know/understand the BLL, my legal reasoning is still very poor. No worries though - that is what law school is all about.

I also recommend "Law 101". It is another very easy (and entertaining) read, and it is written for "non-lawyers". The book walks you through the basic principles of all the courses you will be taking your first year.

Word of caution: Take my advice with a grain of salt. I am merely a 0L. I just know that all this prepping has made me a whole lot less anxious. Whether all this prepping will pay off is to be determined when I do/don't grade onto Law Review.